Trazyn
and his Necron Legion ]] Trazyn, also known as Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Overlord and the self-proclaimed Archaeovist of the Solemnace Galleries on the Necron Tomb World of Solemnace. Trazyn is a preserver of histories, artefacts and events, and often "liberates" what he wants from other alien races or even his fellow Necrons so that the treasures may be preserved in his galleries. Often performing his work through mindshackled cat’s paws and surrogate body hosts, recent times have forced him to take a more active role in acquiring additions to his galleries lest the historical treasures be lost in the flames of war forever. Trazyn only wages war in order to maintain and expand his collection, often disregarding strategic and tactical considerations in order to do so. However, his actions tend to coincidentally accomplish military goals, and Trazyn's underlings and allies are quick to capitalise on this while the oblivious Phaeron claims his prize. Trazyn's obsessive nature means that he is loathe to explore the galaxy himself but his intense desire to gather exquisite artefacts to catalogue forces him to leave his Tomb World behind when there is an opportunity he simply cannot pass up. Furthermore, he is known to often send Necron agents disguised as himself to do his work for him. Many of Trazyn's foes have become startled to discover that the Necron they had slain who they believed to be Trazyn was in fact a Lychguard or a lesser Necron Lord. On such occasions, the real Trazyn works from behind the scenes in order to circumvent direct opposition through stealth and trickery to get his Necrodermis-sheathed hands on the latest prize to add to his collection. History Solemnace Galleries The vast and numberless vaults burrowed through the Tomb World of Solemnace are crowded with technologies so rare and sublime that any Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priest would give the life of several close colleagues just to know that they existed. The sunken chambers of the galleries are crowded with artefacts of all forms: the fabled Wraithbone choir of the Eldar Altansar Craftworld, the preserved head of Sebastian Thor, the ossified husk of an Enslaver, and a giant of a man clad in baroque Power Armour, his face contorted in a permanent scream, to name but a few. It is a hoard ever growing, for history is always on the march, and Trazyn strives to keep pace. Alas, few worlds willingly give up the artefacts Trazyn seeks of them, selfishly clutching onto the few meaningful things of their civilisation rather than offering them up to be preserved through the ages. In such circumstances, Trazyn has little choice but to muster his armies and take them by force -- if this results in the destruction of a city, a planet or an entire sector of the galaxy, so be it. Most impressive of all Solemnace's wonders are the prismatic galleries, winding chambers of statuary recapturing events from galactic history that Trazyn deems worthy of preservation, ranging on scale from the last high council of the ldharae Craftworld, to the sprawling massacres on Tragus. The prismatic galleries are populated not with mere sculpture, but living beings transmuted into hard-light holograms by arcane technology. Some such statues are nothing less than the original enactors of history, frozen in the moment of triumph or defeat and whisked away to Solemnace to forever stand as testament to their deeds. Occasionally a statue will be destroyed, shattered by a malfunctioning Canoptek Wraith's collision, the collapse of a gallery's ceiling or, as happened on one catastrophic occasion, a fire fight between Trazyn's warrior-servants and the entourage of an all-too-curious Inquisitor (most of whom now constitute their own display in one of the upper galleries), have also led to unforeseen damage. Such events drive Trazyn to frustration, for he must halt his search for fresh acquisitions and seek out replacements. Of course, few of the statues are replaceable, but there are no rules to Trazyn's galleries save those that he himself decides upon. If he decides one of the hard-light tableaus fulfils its function with substitutes -- however inaccurate -- then he will acquire them. Fully one tenth of his "Death of Lord Solar Macharius" gallery is populated by holographic Imperial Guardsmen whose uniforms are three hundred standard years astray from historical fact, but Trazyn cares only for the spectacle, not the details of bootlaces and buttonholes. Once Trazyn has resolved to refresh his galleries, he does so with great urgency, seeking out campaigning armies, vulnerable garrisons or populated worlds with flawed planetary defences. Depending on the scale of losses, replenishment might be achieved by a few simple kidnappings by low-flying Night Scythes, or may need a more substantial mobilisation to process and catalogue portions of the planetary population. Nor are other Necron Tomb Worlds immune to Trazyn’s attentions. In his mind, other Necrons are no more trustworthy than aliens when it comes to guardianship of the artefacts he craves. Thus Trazyn makes little distinction between artefacts held on alien worlds and those possessed by his own kind. The resulting indiscrete "liberations" have rendered him persona non grata on several Tomb Worlds. He is forbidden entirely from the catacombs of Mandragora under pain of death, following a long-ago attempt to spirit away the Staff of the Destroyer, and welcomed on Moebius on the strict understanding that his arrival will in some way improve the standing of the ruling Nekthyst Dynasty. These occurrences go some way to explain why Trazyn rarely travels under his own name, but with his true identity concealed by pseudonym. Alas, whilst he fancies these names to be masterful attempts at deception, all are simply plucked from ancient Necron myth or fabled literature, such as Nemesor Koschai or Thantekh the Deathless. That Trazyn is rarely discovered before he is ready to make his move, therefore, says more rather about the insular nature and selective knowledge of other Necron nobles than it does his own aptitude for subterfuge. Even on Ork-held planets, Tau Sept worlds and human colonies, where his dealings are conducted strictly through mindshackled cat's paws, Trazyn goes to great pains to keep his identity a secret. He knows full well that his activities have come to the attention of certain Rogue Traders and Inquisitors -- after all, the Imperium’s tangled history presents something of an irresistible lure to one such as Trazyn. Nonetheless, whilst he remains confident in his ability to outwit the plots and snares of primitive humans, Trazyn's paranoia is sufficient to force a degree of caution. Trazyn commonly conducts reconnaissance and campaigns through surrogates -- substitute bodies into which he can pour his will. Should the body suffer catastrophic damage, Trazyn's essence simply returns to his "true" form, or otherwise into another surrogate. Not all Trazyn’s substitutes are immediately recognisable as such. Indeed many surrogates are actually Necron Lords or Necron Overlords in their own right who, unbeknownst to them, have had their bodies subverted by Trazyn. Should he need to occupy such a body, he can do so as easily as he could any other surrogate -- the regular occupant's will is suppressed for the duration of Trazyn's occupation, and the body itself instantly morphs into an exact facsimile of his primary form. Thus protected from the dangers of a perilous galaxy, Trazyn can go wherever his passion for preservation takes him. Yet these days of caution and plotting are fast passing by. The raucous din of war grows louder in every corner of the galaxy, consuming temples, cities, worlds and even entire races long before Trazyn has had the opportunity to catalogue and "rescue" all that is worth saving. Thus, for the first time in millions of years, Trazyn is mobilising the full might of Solemnace's legions -- the better to secure entire planets from the onset of ignorant barbarians whilst a proper and detailed cultural survey is undertaken. Already a score of the Imperium’s worlds are under occupation by Trazyn's forces, the inhabitants subjugated by his implacable minions, but the undying legions of Solemnace show no signs of stopping. The Spear of Vulkan Trazyn has tried twice to obtain the Spear of Vulkan for his collection, a potent melee weapon and one of the nine Artefacts of Vulkan left behind by the Salamanders Legion's Primarch for his Astartes sons to reclaim over the millennia after his last known reappearance during the War of the Beast in the 32nd Millennium. Trazyn first sought to take the Spear from its wielder, the Salamanders Forgefather Vulkan He'stan, in 878.M41. However he was defeated in personal combat by He'stan. He made a second attempt during the Tochran Crusade in 943.M41 (see below). The 13th Black Crusade As Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade moved to its climax during the Forces of Chaos' final assault upon the Fortress World of Cadia in 999.M41, Trazyn the Infinite played the unlikely role of hero, becoming an uneasy and self-interested ally of the Imperium of Man's defenders. Dedicated above all to his obsessive collecting, a victory by Chaos, condemning the galaxy to potential destruction at the hands of the Ruinous Powers, would severely damage Trazyn's ability to find new specimens. To this end, he decided to intervene on the side of the Imperium to try and thwart Chaos' final victory. It began on the Necron Overlord's home Tomb World of Solemnace. The first alarm came from the Bell of Saint Gerstahl. For thousands upon thousands of standard years, it had sat in silence upon its pedestal, content to while away eternity in the vast collection of artefacts possessed by Trazyn. Then, on a day seemingly little different to any other in the unchanging hallways of Solemnace, the bell began chiming with ever greater force -- in full and inexplicable defiance of the stasis vault housing it. The first doleful note it chimed split the vaulted ceiling of the bell's stasis chamber, unleashing a flood of coolant that instantly dissolved the last examples of Ooliac sand-sculpture in existence. The second note triggered a logic cascade within the circuits of Solemnace's master program, causing it to wrongly command each and every one of the Tomb World's Necron Warrior legions to return to stasis-sleep. By the time the Bell of Saint Gerstahl sounded its third chime, the reverberations had grown sufficiently destructive that even the composite alloys of Necron "flesh" could not withstand its onslaught. Trazyn lost five surrogate bodies in his increasingly desperate attempts to bring about silence. After the thirteenth chime -- and just as the collateral damage finally outpaced Solemnace's Canoptek custodians' ability to contain it -- the Bell of Saint Gerstahl finally fell silent. Pausing only to cast the contraption into the depths of the Webway -- where he profoundly hoped it would bedevil the Eldar as much as it had lately inconvenienced him -- the Lord of Solemnace pondered the meaning of it all. Departing Solemnace, Trazyn made for Thanatos, Crownworld of the Necron Oruscar Dynasty and home to the wonders of the Celestial Orrery. His welcome in those halls was less than effusive -- in part due to a misunderstanding over the Oruscar Glyph of Dominance, which had gone missing during a prior visit. However, after bargains were struck and promises made, Trazyn was finally permitted access to the Orrery itself -- if under the watchful gaze of Oruscar Lychguards. As he stepped into the whirling sphere of living metal and holographic light, Trazyn realised something was amiss. The intricate webs that formed the links of the Orrery were under-lit by a crimson stain. It pulsed beneath the weave of worlds like an infection, forcing its way to the surface. Something was coming. Something that would change the shape of the galaxy. Thus far, it had gone unnoticed, but there was no hiding anything from the Celestial Orrery, for it was not merely a representation of the galaxy, but a perfect reflection of it. Trazyn realised the Oruscar had known about the rising corruption for Terran centuries -- perhaps even millennia -- but had made no move to combat it. They could not, for inaction was the price of custodianship. But Trazyn had no such restraint -- indeed, he acknowledged no master save his own amusement. He could act, if he chose. After untold millennia, there was some appeal in playing at selflessness...But where to begin? Where was the cause of the corruption? Trazyn lost track of time studying the Orrery's pathways, searching for the wellspring of the galaxy's woes -- the source of the blight worming its way through the galaxy's heart. At last he found it, far to the galactic northwest, bordering the Eye of Terror. In the Orrery, that world was catalogued as a string of trinary data, whose details Trazyn deliberately forgot. To the Imperium of Man, it was known as Cadia. Trazyn could not recall setting foot there, not in all his travels. To his understanding, it was a drab, grey world, of interest only to the bellicose. On the other hand, if the role of saviour grew tiring, Cadia would surely offer opportunities to expand his collection. The door shuddered, then hissed open. Water crystals formed on the pock-marked metal of Trazyn's body. He didn't even need to examine the status panel to know that Phalanxes ZX/48 through ZX/128 wouldn't marshal for battle any time soon. They were frozen solid. Just like all the others. "Why did I ever bring that wretched bell here?" Trazyn muttered, even though he knew precisely why he'd done so. The Shrine World's guardians had been just as desperate to keep the Bell of Saint Gerstahl as the Black Legion had been to destroy it. Thousands of lives, cast into oblivion in pursuit of one singular artefact. And all for nothing, as events had transpired. That story alone made it worth preservation -- or so Trazyn had originally thought. Now, with half his stasis vaults collapsed or ankle-deep in coolant, and his legions frozen at the command of Solemnace's damaged master program... Trazyn keyed the release. The door jerked closed. He could hardly make the journey undefended. Cadia was a near-permanent war zone, and he'd not survived the endless aeons since biotransference by taking unnecessary risks. Perhaps one of his peers would lend him a phalanx or two. Imotekh of the Sautekh Dynasty, perhaps? No...Not after Somonor. In fact, now Trazyn came to consider it, he didn't have any peers left who wouldn't turn him down outright, or else use the opportunity to assassinate him. Then perhaps one of his contacts within the Imperium itself? No. They were too parochial. There had been that one Inquisitor... A shame what had happened to her, but humans took such great delight in killing one another. No, sadly Helynna Valeria would be of no assistance, but maybe she held the key -- or at least invited a certain sardonic justice. His spirits restored, Trazyn headed deeper in the catacombs, searching for one particular vault... Trazyn eventually made his way to Cadia, accompanied by several key items holding portions of his Imperial collection. He made contact with Archamgos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, who had set himself the task of determining how to make use of the Cadian Pylons to close off the Eye of Terror from realspace and save Cadia from the Forces of Chaos. The Archmagos at first mistook the Necron Overlord for another xenos who had aided him in the past and set him on the path to Cadia, the Harlequin Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker. Cawl turned, servo-crawlers scuttling beneath him. The intruder was not the Eldar Shadowseer. Green eyes blazed from beneath a hood of metallic scale. The power core of a burnished staff glinted. "I mean you no harm." The figure cocked his head to one side. "Are those the correct words? I find that no matter which I use, no one ever believes them." He paused. "Wait...What did you call me?" Secondary circuits meshed, retrieving ancient data. A Necron. A soulless embodiment of the Motive Force. A blasphemy against the Omnissiah. Cawl's Arc Scourge slithered to life, energy crackling across its coils. "You are an abomination." The Necron set his staff aside. "'Thief' normally suffices. I prefer 'honoured guest.' But abomination or thief, you and I have common cause." Cawl willed the Arc Scourge's tendrils to war mode, already anticipating the joy of dissection. "Logic dictates otherwise." "Then you don't seek to understand the nature of this matrix?" The Arc Scourge grew still at Cawl's wordless command. This was unexpected. Or was it the abomination's trick to preserve its mockery of existence? "You comprehend its secrets?" "I was there when they were first erected. Or perhaps I wasn't. You of all people should understand that memory is a fickle thing." Cawl allowed an angry hiss to rattle through his rebreather. "We share no commonality." "Perhaps. I went to the fires of biotransference in chains. You, I think, have gladly sliced away your humanity piece by piece." The Necron stepped closer, eyes blazing. "But neither of us desires to see this galaxy ripped asunder by the Empyreal Ones. Destroy me if you wish. I will simply awaken elsewhere. Nothing will change. For me, for you ... for this world." Cawl remained silent, probabilities warping and reforming with fresh data. First an Eldar had set him on this path, now a Necron offered to guide his steps. But if the knowledge preserved the Omnissiah's Imperium ... "Show me." Sardonic laughter, dry as dust, echoed around the cavern. "I thought you'd never ask." With Trazyn's aid, Belisarius Cawl began to master the intricacies of the Necron-built pylon network beneath Cadia's Elysion Fields, the largest field of the pylons on the Fortress World. Unfortunately, a massive Chaos assault led by the Black Legion began on the caverns beneath the Elysion Fields where the Archmagos worked. To provide Cawl with more time to complete his work, Trazyn released "reinforcements" from his Tesseract Labyrinths, all potent defenders of the Imperium of Man in days past. At Trazyn's direction, Cawl focussed his attentions on the pylon that served as the command node for the Elysion Fields. With each moment, the tendrils of his machine consciousness wended deeper into the pylon's pathways, his understanding of its arcane constructions magnifying with each binharic calculation. At last, he comprehended the full scope and purpose of the pylon fields, the elegance of a design millennia beyond the advances of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Trazyn the Infinite watched from the shadows, careful not to provoke the Kataphron Breachers tasked with his obliteration should he attempt betrayal. He still didn't know himself if he intended one. The possibilities offered by the immediate future were too tempting, yet too finely balanced. Had he come as thief or a saviour? Did he any longer know how to make the choice? Uncertain, the Necron watched the Archmagos at his work. The western wall of the vast cavern collapsed with an ear-splitting roar. Black-armoured Traitors crashed into the line of waiting Electro-priests, a line that collapsed within moments of the first blow. Abaddon the Despoiler himself hacked and tore at their head, the Daemon Sword Drach'nyen cleaving alloy and bone without effort. Cawl saw none of it, his tri-level consciousness locked in the joys of discovery. Trazyn watched the Breachers' Torsion Cannons rip into the Traitors' ranks, and knew at once the Kataphrons could not prevail. Thief or saviour? The decision had been made for him. At least for the moment. Reaching beneath his scaled cloak, the Necron withdrew a gleaming fractal Tesseract Labyrinth and hurled it into the fray. It bounced twice, the shifting energy fields decomposing into glowing gossamer strands, then its captive dimensions unfolded in a burst of dazzling light, disgorging a new army into the war-torn cavern. This was not a Necron legion, nor even a body of troops drawn from a single world. The Tesseract's contents comprised the merest fragment of Trazyn's Imperial collection, drawn from archives filled to bursting, or storage vaults given over to duplicate exhibits. Some had languished in Solemnace's stasis vaults for Terran millennia, the fleeting centuries passing unnoticed. Others had joined the collection in but recent times, their captivity measured in solar months or years. For Lieutenant-Commander Cerantes of the Ultramarines Legion, barely an eyeblink had passed since the dark days of the Horus Heresy. For his Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts and mortal brothers alike, no guidance was needed save the presence of the blasphemous icons of Chaos, and the Imperium's double-headed Aquila. The Dreadnought Talon at their head, the time-lost Ultramarines prosecuted their eternal battle anew. Others were not so swift to react. The Vostroyan Firstborn's XXI Regiment, taken by the Necron Overlord during one of the innumerable Greenskin offensives along the Segmentum Obscurus, found themselves beset with stasis sickness, their heads swimming as perceptions snapped back into step with reality. But the roar of battle cures many ills of the mind, and the desire for survival transcends all existential doubt. Orders rang out, and the shaken Vostroyans entered the fray, joined by snipers from long-dead Tanith, Salamanders Astartes thought lost during the Klovian disaster, and a lone warrior in golden armour, his scarlet plume and eagle heraldry of the Adeptus Custodes seldom seen so far from the cradle of Mankind on Terra. With the arrival of the impossible reinforcements, the Black Legion assault stalled. His self-appointed duty done, Trazyn returned to the shadows. The role of saviour might perhaps have suited him in that hour, but self-sacrifice was a task he gladly left to organics. Yet there was one amongst the Tesseract-loosed group who did not join the battle, but surveyed it coldly from the fringes. Katarinya Greyfax, Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus, was not known for leaping to rash conclusions, for she counted rashness as but one of the many paths to heresy. Her bodyguard, drawn from the 55th Kappic Eagles, had learned this harsh lesson over many standard years of indentured service. Though Lasguns were levelled and safeties disengaged, not a single Scion fired without the Inquisitor's order. The Puritan Inquisitor Greyfax would prove to be the most potent of the Imperial agents that Trazyn released back into the galaxy that day. Though even she had not survived her time in captivity wholly unaltered, as the Necron Overlord soon made abundantly clear when he reappeared to the Inquisitor during a lull in the battle beneath the pylon fields. Greyfax aimed the muzzle of her Condemnor Pattern Bolter squarely between them. "Abomination." "That word again." A metal hand gestured lazily across the cavern. "Stop me if this sounds familiar, but I suspect your priorities require re-evaluation." "You sow corruption wherever you tread. Your reckoning is overdue." She pulled the trigger. Or she tried to. Her finger didn't respond. Trazyn opened his palm, a ﬂood of microscopic machines ﬂowing over his fingers. "I'm not a fool. The Mindshackle will not let you harm me." Bile ﬂooded Greyfax's mouth. Anger seared it away. "You've corrupted me! As you did Valeria!" "A precaution only. As for Valeria ... She had a remarkable brain. You robbed me of the opportunity for study." Again Greyfax tried to pull the trigger. Again nothing happened. Useless. "I brought you here out of common cause," said Trazyn. "I am not yet done with this world, and nor is your Imperium. If you seek to save it, I suggest you focus that formidable certainty of yours elsewhere. Our reckoning will wait." And so it did. Cawl managed to get the Cadian Pylon network functioning briefly, and it even cut the Forces of Chaos' connection to the Immaterium by causing the Eye of Terror to begin to shrink, badly weakening the hold of its daemonic forces upon the Materium. Even the Despoiler was forced to retreat off-planet, angered that its defenders had once more managed to prevent him from claiming the prize directly in bloody-handed battle. But Abaddon would not be denied his prize this time. He used the damaged remains of the Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity, incapacitated by an assault from the Imperial Fists mobile fortress-monastery Phalanx as an artificial meteorite, which slammed into the surface of Cadia, toppling the pylons and killing most of its remaining defenders. Not only were the Chaos' forces links to the Warp restored, but the Eye of Terror began to grow beyond its former bounds, engulfing the Cadian Gate and the dying Fortress World itself. The instability in the Warp would extend outwards from the Eye of Terror, eventually cutting the galaxy -- and the Imperium of Man itself -- in half, creating the Great Rift. For Trazyn, the cause was lost, and having done what he could, he decided to claim one more prize addition to his collection. He watched the end of the battle for the caverns beneath the Elysion Fields from a rocky perch, aware that history unfolded before him. His taste for the glory of the hero had faded, replaced by the urge to claim a trinket from the momentous hour. Perhaps a thief was all he was meant to be in the end. Metal fingers toyed with another Tesseract Labyrinth, its unfathomable dimensions fit to carry a single trophy from embattled Cadia. But what should that trophy be? So many prizes worthy of preservation clamoured for attention. A stray Volkite Culverin blast shuddered Trazyn's stalagmite, and he retired to safer ground. The Tesseract would wait. Whatever his prize, its historic value would only increase as the course of victory tipped one way or the other. And Trazyn waited til the very end, as the Imperial defenders fled the caverns beneath the Elysion Fields in the wake of Abaddon's catastrophic meteorite strike. As Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed, Cadia's greatest defender and the man who had almost single-handedly kept the Fortress World alive, organised the evacuation of the surviving Imperial forces from the dying world of Cadia, determined to die with dignity even as he tried to save what he could, the Necron Overlord struck. With a shudder, the line of Cadian defenders shrank towards the evacuation fields. The winds rose, stirring the dust-storm to new heights. Suddenly Creed was alone. A ﬂame-chased shadow passed overhead, the cog-toothed skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus emblazoned on its ﬂanks. Las-fire lanced from its prow, provoking daemonic screams from deeper within the dust-storm. Then engines roared, and the transport thundered skywards. The last transport. Cadia was now little more than a graveyard, haunted by the stubborn and the dead. Creed stumbled. Despite the medics' valiant labours, his wounds still bled. He felt his strength ebbing as his lifeblood seeped into the greatcoat's fabric. One last effort. Then he'd rest. One last effort. The storm parted -- not before a daemon, but a metal giant in a scaled cloak. The wind snatched away Creed's hurried shot. Light glittered upon the figure's upraised palm, iridescent polygons billowing in a hypnotic dance. "Ursarkar E. Creed." The giant's words slammed down like tombstones. "This need not be your end. Eternity awaits." The giant's laughter followed Creed into darkness. And then Trazyn let the darkness claim him, teleporting back to Solemnace, thief and would-be saviour both. Notable Campaigns *'Raid on Solemnace (739.M41)' - Following the onslaught of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth, the xenobiologists and Inquisitors of the Imperium were left with many questions that require answers. One such question brings Inquisitor Helynna Valeria to the ghost world of Solemnace, seeking an explanation for why the world had gone untouched when all other planets in the Hive Fleet's path now lie destroyed. Nothing could have prepared Valeria for what she finds in the silent darkness beneath Solemnace's pitted and barren surface: endless catacombs of advanced technology, long-lost artefacts from the Imperium's history and gallery after gallery of intricate life-size holographic sculptures laid out in silent tableau to commemorate historic scenes, Valeria's party is briefly awestruck by what they discover, but then the entire Tomb World comes to angry life. Wave after wave of Canoptek Scarabs and Necron Warriors descend from all sides and the still air is filled with the whine of discharging Gauss Weapons. Seeking to regain the initiative for her beset followers, Valeria led a charge against the shadowy figure orchestrating the carnage. Sighting carefully, Valeria unleashed a pulse from her Graviton Beamer that reduced the Necron Lord to mangled and fused scrap. Yet moments later, an identical figure emerged from the darkness, hale and undamaged. This time Valeria plunged the Dagger of Midnight's blade into her adversary’s heart, yet even as her opponent’s sparking frame sunk to the ground, another identical Necron Lord strode forwards, trampling the now-faceless ruin at her feet. With that, Valeria ordered a retreat back to the shuttles. Only a handful of the expeditionaries that initially set out to the world survived to reach their destination, and they did so empty-handed. Much to Valeria’s disappointment, the Tomb World of Solemnace kept all of its glorious secrets. Sometime after the conflict, Valeria received a personal hyperscroll message from Trazyn himself, thanking her for sending five regiments of Catachan Jungle Fighters to add to his galleries. Accompanying the message as a return gift was a Hyperstone Maze, one of a series of Tesseract Labyrinths constructed at the height of the Charnovokh Dynasty. It is unknown what became of this gift thereafter, or if Valeria managed to escape its transdimensional clutches and not become another one of Trazyn's prized "acquisitions." *'Infinite Enmity (878.M41)' - Forgefather Vulkan He'stan of the Salamanders Chapter defeats Trazyn the Infinite in personal combat after the Necron attempts to wrest the Spear of Vulkan for his own collection. *'Tochran Crusade (943.M41)' - Trazyn the Infinite claims to have discovered the Song of Entropy -- one of the missing Artefacts of Vulkan -- instigating a solar-decade-long war between the Salamanders Chapter and the Necron forces of Solemnace. Trazyn's claim proves to be a lie to lure Vulkan He'stan into a trap during the Assault of Tochran, where the Necron once again attempts to slay the Forgefather and acquire the Spear of Vulkan. The Salamanders 6th Company fight back-to-back, Bolters and Flamers defiantly blazing away at the surrounding Necrons. Forty Battle-Brothers fall during the fighting, but at battle's end, He'stan defeats Trazyn once more, and the Salamanders stand knee-deep in broken Necron bodies. *'The Unknowable (991.M41)' - Skitarii from Stygies VIII are sent to the diluvian-class world of Magogue when the planet's industry dries up its oceans to reveal Necrontyr architecture. The Skitarii fight valiantly against the Necrons of the awakening tomb complexes, allowing the planet's islander people to evacuate to a man, but are badly outmatched. Only their commanding Tech-priests, hunting for knowledge behind the lines, escape the ensuing carnage. However, in doing so they clash with Trazyn the Infinite. One by one the Tech-priests are collected in stasis fields and displayed as part of a monument to Magogue's fall. *'The Carnac Campaign (999.M41)' – Anrakyr the Traveller arrives on a planet he supposes to be the Tomb World of Carnac, only to find it infested with Eldar Exodites. Realising that the tomb, if it remains, will be buried too deep for him to awaken before the Exodites can themselves summon aid, Anrakyr entreats the Necron Lords and Necron Overlords of other Tomb Worlds for aid. Reinforcements arrive from Mandragora, Gidrim and Trakonn, though the most unexpected of all is a contingent from Solemnace, led by Trazyn the Infinite himself. All this takes time, however, and by the time the Night Scythe fleets deploy the invading forces, the armies of the Alaitoc Craftworld stand side by side with the Exodites. Guided by the prophecies of Farseer Eldorath Starbane and the strategies of Illic Nightspear, the Eldar attempt to stall the Necron invasion with a series of hit-and-run attacks. Their aim is to sever the command structure by destroying Anrakyr and his closest allies, but the Pyrrhian Lord manages to subvert the prophecies of the Farseer through the astromantic analyses of Orikan the Diviner. Though Orikan’s divinations are by no means as focussed as those of Starbane, they are sufficient to tangle the skeins of fate and leave many details beyond the Farseer’s reach. So it is that Pathfinders arrive at what they thought to be Anrakyr’s location, only to find him long gone and squads of Deathmarks waiting in ambush. After several inconclusive battles on Carnac’s verdant plains, Anrakyr forces the Eldar to engage in a head-to-head confrontation by marching on the World Spirit shrine. As the tireless Necron legions advance upon its walls, Doom Scythes duel with Eldar fighters in the skies above, Deathmarks ply a deadly trade of ambush and counter-ambush with Alaitoc Pathfinders, and all the while Flayed Ones prowl on the flanks, pouncing on any Eldar foolish enough to show even a momentary sign of weakness. The sides are well matched, with the Necron hardiness countered by the precise strikes of the Eldar. Victory finally falls to the Necrons when Carnac’s tomb unexpectedly begins to awaken, stirred from dormancy by the tumult above. With Necron reinforcements now starting to constantly trickle into the campaign, the Eldar have little choice but to abandon Carnac and its World Spirit to their foes. Anrakyr is grimly jubilant in the campaign’s aftermath and gladly accedes when Trazyn requests the entire World Spirit shrine as spoils of war. For his part, Orikan requests no trophy or payment for victory, and merely hopes that when the flush of victory fades, no one thinks to question the convenient coincidence of Carnac’s awakening. *'13th Black Crusade (999.M41)' - During the 13th Black Crusade Trazyn's collection on Solemnace was thrown into upheaval by the artefact known as the Bell of Saint Gerstahl, which had been designed to sound a warning when Chaos finally threatened to overwhelm the galaxy. The power of the Bell nearly brought the Tomb World down around Trazyn's metallic head, damaging the world's master program. This provoked the Necron Overlord into investigating the cause via the Celestial Orrery, a device used to monitor the galaxy that lay in the possession of the Necron Oruskar Dynasty's Crownworld of Thanatos. While using the Orrery, Trazyn discovered that the Cadian Pylons were holding back the tide of the Warp on the Imperial Fortress World of Cadia, which had become the fulcrum point in the galaxy's conflict with Chaos. Not wishing to see Chaos spread throughout the galaxy and also always eager to claim new items of extraordinary historical importance for his collection, Trazyn ventured to Cadia and aided the Imperial defenders there. Trazyn revealed to Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl how to activate the Necron-built Cadian Pylon network to seal off the Eye of Terror from realspace, but even this was ultimately not enough to prevent the destruction of the planet. Abaddon the Despoiler used the damaged Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity as an artificial meteorite which carried out a kinetic strike on the planet's surface killing most of its defenders and toppling the pylon network. As Cadia died, Trazyn aided the Imperial defenders against Abaddon;s forces and unleashed a small portion of his Imperial collection against the Black Legion, including the Puritan Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax. Before he teleported away once he determined that he could do no more to aid the Imperial defenders, he claimed a new prize for his collection -- the badly wounded Lord Castellan of Cadia, Ursarkar E. Creed. Notable Formations *'Acquisition Phalanx' – For Trazyn the Infinite, ruler of the desolate Tomb World of Solemnace, war is nothing more than an opportunity to add new items to his archives. The larger the war, the more impressive the curiosities that can be "liberated". To Trazyn, many treasures are priceless, such as a fragment of a Baneblade’s armour, provided that the Baneblade is of a storied renown and glorious endeavour. Such prizes are more than enough to lure the master of Solemnace and his personal guard into the din of battle, in a formation known as an Acquisition Phalanx that sets out specifically to capture such artefacts. An Acquisition Phalanx consists of Trazyn himself and five squads of his personal Lychguard bodyguards who have a ceaseless loyalty to their master. These Lychguard are most often armed with Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields, as arcane technologies allow the interlocking shields to form a Dispersion Barrier around the formation, protecting everyone within the force field, even if they are not holding aloft their own Dispersion Shield. Trazyn's Collection The following represent a few select examples of what can be found in Trazyn's collection of historical individuals and artefacts: *Wraithbone choir of the Eldar Craftworld of Altansar. *The preserved head of the Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor. *The ossified husk of an Enslaver. *Brother Cassiel of the Blood Angels Chapter of Space Marines, who had been seconded to the Deathwatch. Cassiel was a giant even for one of the Astartes, and his face had been perpetually frozen by Trazyn's technology in a moment of fear. *One of the shrines that had contained the World Spirit of Carnac, a Necron Tomb World that had become settled by Eldar Exodites during the the Necrons' Long Sleep. In the ensuing Carnac Campaign, the Necrons under Anrakyr the Traveller had reclaimed the planet after their awakening. A portion of the planet's World Spirit had then been claimed by Trazyn. *Several regiments of Catachan Jungle Fighters taken during the Acabrius War. *A device containing the entire Hive Fleet that launched the Tyranid invasion of the world of Vuros, which Trazyn himself had sparked in an effort to add a Tyranid exhibit to his collection. Trazyn found himself forced to abandon this particular exhibit after his legions were forced to engage in several full-scale battles with the Tyranids when portions of the exhibit managed to escape on Solemnace. *Lieutenant-Commander Cerantes of the Ultramarines Legion, his Battle-Brothers and several Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts from the time of the Horus Heresy. These Astartes were all slain on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade at the Battle of the Elysion Fields. *At least one member of the Adeptus Custodes. *Several regiments of Vostroyan Firstborn, including the XXI Vostroyan Regiment. *The lost regiments of Astra Militarum from Tanith. *Astartes of the Salamanders Chapter thought lost during the disaster on Klovia. *The last Lord Castellan of Cadia, Ursarkar E. Creed, captured during the final moments before the fall of that Fortress World to Chaos during the 13th Black Crusade. *The Puritan Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax of the Ordo Hereticus and her bodyguard of Tempestus Scions drawn from the 55th Kappic Eagles. After Trazyn freed Greyfax, she survived the fall of Cadia, and went on to become a major participant in the events of the Ultramar Campaign, the Terran Crusade, and eventually the Indomitus Crusade, serving as a loyal commander for the resurrected Lord Commander of the Imperium, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman. After the fall of Cadia, Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl was able to remove the Mindshackle Scarabs from her body during the journey to Macragge at the outset of the Ultramar Campaign that had prevented her from harming Trazyn during the Battle of the Elysion Fields, though this was not without extreme pain for the Inquisitor. *A perfect clone of the Primarch Fulgrim, which he received in exchange for providing 18,000 samples of pure Emperor's Children gene-seed in a deal with Fabius Bile. Wargear *'Necrodermis '- Like all Necrons, Trazyn's body is built from the self-repairing living metal known as Necrodermis. As befits one of his lofty rank, Trazyn's body is of superior craftsmanship and richly adorned, clearly announcing his status and allowing him to repair even the most grievous of wounds in a matter of moments. *''Empathic Obliterator'' – The Empathic Obliterator is a unique Necron staff carried by Trazyn the Infinite everywhere he goes. This terrible weapon is rightly feared by his enemies, and there is a dark rumour that the staff contains technology derived from that of the long-extinct Old Ones. When an enemy is slain by the staff, a psionic shockwave bursts forth from his body, potentially killing nearby creatures of a similar mind and purpose. Hence, an entire squad can be wiped out with a single blow of this horrific weapon. The Empathic Obliterator suits the personal combat style of Trazyn, as he disdains physical combat with "inferior" beings of flesh and blood and prefers to cleave them apart with as little fuss as possible. *'Mindshackle Scarabs' – A Mindshackle Scarab is a specialised Canoptek Scarab variant that is one of the Necrons' chief methods for controlling sentient alien races. At the bearer’s command, a swarm of these tiny robotic scarabs bury into the victim’s head and bypass his or her cerebral functions, turning the victim into little more than a puppet under the control of the scarabs’ master. When released during combat, they can be used to force a person to attack his own forces for at least a short time before he can wrest back control of his mind. *'Surrogate Hosts' - Trazyn has many enemies, both amongst and outside the Necrons, and hence has accordingly devised a system allowing him to outlast any assassination attempt. He has implanted within his underling Lychguards, Lords, Overlords and even Crypteks an arcane device allowing him to pour his own mnemonic engrams into their bodies whenever necessary. When he does this, the personality of the one he transfers his consciousness into becomes dormant, and its Necrodermis body adapts to become a copy of Trazyn's own body. Whenever his host becomes damaged or his presence is required elsewhere, Trazyn merely wills himself into another body. This has led to his nickname of "the Infinite", for many of his opponents have fled in dismay after smiting Trazyn down repeatedly only to see him rise again and again. In Other Media Trazyn narrates the Faction Trailer of Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. Sources *''Apocalypse'' (6th Edition), pg. 169 *''Codex: Necrons'' (5th Edition), pp. 24, 27, 58-59 *''Codex: Necrons'' (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), "A New Epoch Begins," pp. 146-147 *''Codex: Skitarii'' (7th Edition), pg. 23 *''The Gathering Storm - Book One - Fall of Cadia'' (7th Edition), pp. 12-13, 16, 20, 22-23, 26-33, 35-37, 40-42, 44, 48-49,52-53, 58-60, 62-65, 68-69, 72-78, 80-86, 88 *''Xenos Hunters'' (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "The Infinite Tableau" by Anthony Reynolds *[https://forums.focus-home.com/topic/28187/faction-trailer-new-release-date Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 Faction Trailer and New Release Date] *''Fabius Bile: Clonelord'' (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, pg. 480 es:Trazyn Category:T Category:Necron Category:Necron Characters Category:Characters